OU Volleyball pulls out victory over K-State

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The Daily Ardmoreite

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Posted Oct. 15, 2013 at 4:00 PM

Posted Oct. 15, 2013 at 4:00 PM

NORMAN

The University of Oklahoma volleyball team pulled out a 3-1 victory over Kansas State at McCasland Field House, Saturday night. The Sooners improved to 15-4 overall and 3-2 in the Big 12, while the Wildcats dropped to 13-5 and 1-4.

Oklahoma gained the edge with a 25-22 win in the second, but K-State evened things up 25-20 in the second. From there, the Sooners earned the win in set three and four by identical scores of 25-19.

"It's always good to bounce back with a win after a loss," started head coach Santiago Restrepo. "I thought we were able to keep our composure and hit well when we needed to. K-State is a very good blocking team and very well coached, but we were able to hit the ball through their holes, get a lot of deflections and then finally we served a little bit tougher than the first two sets. I think that was the key for us."

Senior middle blocker Sallie McLaurin (Midwest City, Okla.) and redshirt-freshman outside hitter Madison Ward (Lawton, Okla.) led OU with 15 kills apiece. McLaurin hit a match-high .414 as she has hit .400 or better in six of the last seven matches and contributed a match-high seven blocks. Ward recorded the first double-double of her career as she added 11 digs to her career-high in kills as she hit .289.

Senior outside hitter Keila Rodriguez (Gurabo, Puerto Rico) was the third Sooner in double figures. She totaled 12 kills and notched her team-leading sixth double-double of the seasons with a team-leading 20 digs.

"In order for us to continue being successful in the Big 12, we definitely have to have all of our cylinders working. We are not a team that relies on one or two players to carry the load. We are a team that needs everybody to contribute. For the most part, everyone contributed tonight. We had a lot of players in double digits for kills and digs and for us to have 12 blocks was pretty good."